I believe John McEnroe believes he could beat Serena

Wow... A lot of you seem to think Serena is past her peak....

As she goes for the calendar slam .....

 

Buttermaker's daughter? Come on, man. Buttermaker was banging her mom, but she wasn't his daughter.

 

McEnroe was a doughy, pasty "athlete" when he was in his prime. Once the game got athletic (after wooden rackets), he was done in his late 20s.

 

He did take Sampras to 4 sets during Pete's first US Open title run -- at the age of 31. And beat Becker in Australia at age 32 and made Wimbledon semis at 33. And he was of course nowhere near the player he was decade earlier (after his sabbatical he was basically finished as champion). So I think McEnroe in his prime could compete against anyone.

And I'm in the camp that old man McEnroe would beat Serena too.

 

I think McEnroe wins, and I'm not sure it's close.

 

She's had an odd season. The typical player has a losing match record after losing the first set. Federer is 3-6 this season, for example, and he is No. 2 in the world.

Serena is 11-1 after losing the first set. That's insane . . . but it's also a lot of three-set matches for a dominant, top-ranked player. Steffi played only eight three-setters in 1988. Federer has played six (in best-of-3 format). Yesterday was typical Serena. Sleepwalk through a 6--3, first-set loss to Ivanovic, then wake up and steamroll the next two sets.

As for the calendar Slam, a lot of that has to do with circumstances as much as performance. Steffi hadn't even reached her peak as a 19-year-old in 1988. Serena was probably more dominant in 2002 but had to skip the Australian Open after sustaining an injury just before the event.

 

I usually hate gimmicky hypotheticals like this, but I really would like to see this happen.

 

Isn't there a difference between losing the first in a five-set match vs a three-set match?

 

Of course. I only pointed out Federer's stats to show that even a typical highly ranked player will usually have a sub-.500 record when losing the first set. Losing in the first set of a five-setter is not as debilitating (although Federer is 0-2 when losing the first set of a five-set match). He's 3-4 when losing the first set of a three-set match.

Among the women, Sharapova is 2-7 when losing the first set.

A few snippets of the Riggs-Court match, complete with pre-match predictions from O.J. Simpson and Bill Cosby.

 

Cosby was so fucking luuded out.

 

I wouldn't; no matter who wins it would provide jackasses on both sides of the sex-equality debate a whole shitload of bogus talking points.

And then next, the 1-on-1 hoops matchup between Britney Griner and Julius Erving, etc etc.

 

I plead guilty.

As an adult, I've only watched the baseball scenes and hadn't watched the entire movie since I was 8 or 9. My young, idealistic mind assumed Buttermaker was the dad. Just a distant dad.

On the original issue, even if Serena and Mac played best-of-5 sets, I don't think McEnroe would win a set. Serena would train harder, has youth/recovery on her side (compared with him) and is larger and more powerful than McEnroe at this stage.